


outline of a heart

by agrestenoir, projectml



Series: Project: Valentine's Day 2018 [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, valentines day, valentines day cards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15192473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrestenoir/pseuds/agrestenoir, https://archiveofourown.org/users/projectml/pseuds/projectml
Summary: Marinette has many ways to say, “I love you.” Adrien struggles to keep up.





	outline of a heart

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of Project: Miraculous Ladybug's Project: Valentine's Day, 2018.
> 
> Author  
> agrestenoir - http://agrestenoir.tumblr.com/

**Valentines Day 2018**

i.

“I love you.” The words fall from pink lips and into the space between them, something precious and fragile, like a petal blown off a rose. Ladybug loops her arms around his neck, pulling him forward and capture his lips with her own. “I just want you to know that.”

Chat Noir manages a shaky smile, a dark flush dusting the tips of his ears. “Of course, I do, bug.”

She smiles back, quick and easy, and it takes his breath away. “Good.”

“Y-You know I love you too, right?” His voice catches on the words, like he can’t push them free, like some part of him doesn’t want to.

He knows he loves Ladybug—loves her with a deep, burning ache. It’s the same way he knows the flowers always bloom in the spring, how the scent of a coming thunderstorm blows in on the breeze in the summer, how the cold embraces him tightly in the fall, and how the snow kisses cheeks in the winter. It’s the way of the world, his love for Ladybug written into the very laws of nature.

“Of course, I do,” she says in response, blue eyes glittering in the soft, pale moonlight of the late winter evening.

He loves her.

…He just wishes he knew how to tell her, utterly and completely, so that there’s never any doubt.

* * *

 

ii.

He’s written poems before, letters he’s never sent, songs he’s composed but never put lyrics to.

How do you tell someone who means the world to you, that you’d give up your own just to make them happy? Things like that are rare, and humans don’t exactly have the right words to portray meaning. Love, as a fact, is rare and painful. It sneaks up when people least expect it, overcoming them as it constricts and contorts around their heart.

Adrien stares at the blank card in front of him, a simple scrap of paper cut out in the shape of a heart. It’s pale pink and pitiful.

“What do I do, Plagg?” he whispers to the empty air, knowing that his kwami is across the room, and quite possibly can’t hear him. Adrien doesn’t seem to care though, just choosing to speak to ghosts than to actual people who might hear the truth.

Sometimes it’s better to be loved and lonely rather than open yourself up to being hopeful and hurt.

“Where do I even start?” he muses.

Biting the bottom of his lip, he scribbles a simple message across the inside of the card.  _ I love you _ , he writes and stops.

The black ink smears where his fingers trace the letters, reading it back again and again.

Adrien shakes his head and crumbles the card between his hands, throwing it into the nearest trash can.

Ladybug deserves so much better.

* * *

 

iii.

It’s Valentine’s Day, and there’s an envelope on his desk.

Adrien quickly shoves it in his bag, between the tin of cheese and Plagg, and sits down. He knows it’s from Marinette, and he knows she expects him to read it. Instead, he buries his face in his head, cheeks burning with disappointment, because no matter what he does—he’ll never be able to tell her exactly what she means to him. No doubt that the card she’s given him contains everything he needs to hear, everything she ever needs to say—words have always come easy to her.

When he finally reads it, it’s exactly what he expects:  _ I love you, Adrien. Every day I see you, it’s like I love you ten times more than I already do, but my love for you is as limitless as the sky. It’s always there, always has been, and always will be. _ The card is complete with a hand-drawn sketch of cats, because Marinette is an artist with both a needle and pen, and it takes his breath away sometimes. She always has a way of leaving him in awe.

It’s during their free period, when he comes into the bakery with his lunch in hand, and she greets him with a soft expression that makes him think of summer skies and black umbrellas. Together, they sit at a table near the front window, the air around them warm from the oven and heavy with the scent of fresh pastries.

Adrien stares at his lap, eyes swimming with a wide array of emotions. Marinette sets a hand on his shoulder, pulling him from his silent musings, and stares at him, her gaze piercing.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He wraps an arm around his knee, pulling it tight against his chest. “Just thinking.”

“About?” she presses, cocking her head in confusion. “I know something’s bothering you. I know you, remember?”

Adrien can only shrug, shaking his head. “Sometimes I hate how well you know me, actually.”

Marinette’s taken back. “Oh?”

“It’s really nothing,” he says, taking her hand between his and stroking the back of her palm to assuage her worry. “I’m just kicking myself cause I left your Valentine’s card at home.”

“Well that’s nothing to be upset about,” she tells him with a laugh. “You can just give it to me later on patrol tonight, if it bothers you that much.”

_ If only I had something to give you _ , he thinks, but he doesn’t dare say it out loud. Sometimes the truth is better hidden anyway.

* * *

 

iv.

There are many ways to say, “I love you,” but Adrien doesn’t know how to put it into words.

If it was just the simple three, then life would be much easier. However, Marinette doesn’t deserve the black and white typicality of an overdone, overused phrase. She deserves the blooming cherry blossoms in the spring, the grass that grows tall in the park, the colors the leaves change when the cold comes in, the first snowfall of the season. She deserves all the new beginnings, the wonders the world has to offer.

But if all Adrien has to give her is words, and he can’t even string them together for a stupid Valentine’s Day card, then how does he even deserve her in the first place?

He slams his head onto the desk in front of him, another pink card looking as sad and miserable as he feels. “I don’t know what to do, Plagg,” he moans, shaking his head in dismay. “I don’t know how to tell her I love her.”

“Quit your whining, have some camembert,” the kwami chirps in response.

“You don’t understand, Plagg.”

“Yeah, yeah, you can’t tell your girlfriend how you feel about her,” he snaps in return, sniffing his cheese wheel and half-listening to Adrien’s moping. “I don’t get why you can’t just tell her why you love her. Girls love that stuff.”

Adrien pops up, eyes widening in surprise. “What did you say?”

“She already knows you love her,” Plagg continues, finally taking a bite of camembert. “It’s old news by now. Just tell her why you love her. It’s easier, right?”

Adrien doesn’t response. The card in front of him, pen dancing across the page, he’s finally found his message to Marinette.

* * *

 

v.

“This… is a lot,” Ladybug says later that evening when he hands her the Valentine’s Day card. The simple pink heart is filled front and back, inside and out, in black ink.

Adrien flashes her a sheepish smile, gaze bright. Once he’d gotten the idea, the words had come easy from within because, while he didn’t know how to tell her how he felt, he could list the reasons she meant so much to him in the first place. It hurts to admit that Plagg was right, but in this instance, he’d spend the next week thanking the kwami. He’s never been more grateful.

“What can I say?” Adrien shrugs as Marinette studies the card. “I love you a lot.”

She closes her eyes and takes a breath, pressing her forehead into his shoulder. With a soft laugh, he wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, tight against his chest, until the scent of her fills his nose. On the Eiffel Tower, a winter wind blows strong, but neither are frightened by it.

Instead, they sit side by side, fingers intertwined and legs tangled together, lips whispering words against their skin, into the heat of one another’s mouths, tongues tracing syllables against each other. Words may never come easy to him, and they be instinctive for Marinette. But so long as they remind each other just how loved the other truly is, then things will never be bad.

Love is love, and at the end of things, that’s the only thing that matters.


End file.
